Mixing soaring vocals, sweet harmonies, and sultry strings, complemented with an infectiously high-energy stage presence is the essence of 2014 Canadian Country Music Association® (CCMA®) Discovery Series winners The Lovelocks (MDM Recordings Inc. / Universal Music Canada), a female roots-country duo comprised of Ali Raney and Zoe Neuman.  Celebrated by RocketHub as "crowd funding pioneers in the world of country music in Canada", this business-savvy duo has raised over $65,000 dollars to date, funding the recording of their debut EP and the forthcoming album Born to Love (release date: March 4, 2016).

Gearing up for the release of their second album, The Lovelocks released their second single, “Home Sweet Home” to Canadian radio on December 25, 2015, to imminent fan-fuelled festive success. Their new single has dazzled Canadian country music fans, becoming the #1 selling single by a Canadian country artist (week of January 26, 2016)!   Co-written by The Lovelocks (Ali Raney and Zoe Neuman), Gavin Slate (The Tragically Hip, Doc Walker, Barenaked Ladies), Travis Wood, and produced by Grammy award winner Ben Glover, and JUNO award winner Mitch Merrett, “Home Sweet Home” also made it to #2 on the top 50 Canadian viral list on Spotify, gaining 100,000 plays within the first month of the release. The single also achieved a spot in the top 20 Country Singles iTunes chart, with The Lovelocks being the only Canadian artist in the top 20 at that time.  The video for “Home Sweet Home” recently debuted on CMT Canada (February 5, 2016), and was directed by Ben Knechtel, who also directed the music video for Carly Rae Jepsen's “Call Me Maybe”. 

  Speaking of their forthcoming album, the EP is a proud result of creative collaboration with numerous notable talents, including 2016 Academy Award® nominee and songwriter Phil Barton, and once again collaborating with Ben Glover and Mitch Merrett. The Lovelocks share, “We have poured our hearts into creating our new album, Born to Love, which is a collection of love songs in all of its iterations.  Wherever our listeners are at with love and relationships, we hope they find a few favourites that speak to them.”

Celebrated by BlogTO as “one of the top 5 alt-country bands to watch in Toronto”, The Lovelocks are a dynamic duo, just two city girls who LOVE country music. Their sound is commonly described as a mixture of The Dixie Chicks go Lumineering with a Mumford & Sons-ian alt-country, roots-inspired approach filled with authentic, 'roots-country' sound with lots of acoustic instrumentation, including the fiddle, banjo, mandolin, and dobro.  Describing the sound of their current single, “This song is so much fun to perform live! “Home Sweet Home” is about two people, maybe friends, partners, or lovers, chasing dreams together, about being loved and loving well, and being ‘home’ to someone in a way that’s really fun and carefree.  Essentially, wherever you are with that person, then that [place] is ‘home’.  This song is the perfect soundtrack for life's next big adventure!”  


Since Noel and bassist Jared Craig teamed up with brothers Nathan and Trevor Crook (lead guitar and drums respectively), breaking  onto the scene in 2016 with the song “Minnedosa”—an ode to the Crook brothers’ Manitoba hometown—Johnson Crook has become one of the most powerful live acts in Canadian roots music, with their group harmonies frequently drawing comparisons to everyone from the Eagles to Old Dominion. Signing with Toronto-based Coalition Music, they recorded 'The Album' with acclaimed producer Bill Bell (Jason Mraz, Justin Nozuka, Tom Cochrane), who enlisted Tom Cochrane for a guest appearance. From there, they hit the road in earnest across North America, playing massive outdoor festivals, Legion halls, and everything in between. Their new single 'Grass Sure Ain't Greener' produced by Jeff Dalziel is out now.

My original music, collaborations and covers 🎶

B'ass Country Top40 Music Artist | bo@mandybo.com | mandybo.com | #MandyBoVIPEvent June 30 - Be part of recording my new live album, get your tickets or live stream @ http://bit.ly1sbhagz

Shania Twain was born Eilleen Regina Edwards in Windsor, Ontario, Canada on August 28, 1965, the second oldest of five siblings. She was raised in Timmins, Ontario, about 500 miles due north of Toronto, where her adoptive father, an Ojibway Indian named Jerry Twain, and mother, Sharon, had both been raised. It was a proud but, at times, impoverished existence. They struggled to keep enough food in the cupboards, but there was always an abundance of music and love in the household.

Twain often grabbed a guitar and retreated to the solitude of her bedroom singing and writing until her fingers ached. "I grew up listening to Waylon, Willie, Dolly, Tammy, all of them," she recalls. "But we also listened to the Mamas and the Papas, The Carpenters, The Supremes and Stevie Wonder. The many different styles of music I was exposed to as a child not only influenced my vocal style, but even more so, my writing style." Her mom noticed Twain's talents, and soon the youngster was being shuttled to radio and TV studios, community centers, senior citizens' homes, "everywhere they could get me booked." An 8-year-old Twain was often pulled out of bed to sing with the house band at a local club but only after alcohol sales ended at midnight. Later, Twain spent summers working with her stepfather as the foreman of a dozen-man reforestation crew in the Canadian bush, where she learned to wield an axe and handle a chain saw as well as any man. In the winter season, she would sing in clubs and do television and radio performances as often as her schooling would allow.

In 1987, at age 21, Twain lost her parents in an automobile accident. She took on the responsibility of raising her three younger siblings. She managed to keep the household going with a job at Ontario's Deerhurst Resort, which not only provided for her new family responsibilities but also gave her an education in every aspect of theatrical performance, from musical comedy to Andrew Lloyd Webber to Gershwin. Three years later, with her brothers grown enough to take care of themselves, Twain was on her own. Shedding her real name, Eilleen, she adopted the Ojibway name of Shania, meaning "I'm on my way." Twain recorded a demo tape of original music and set her sights on Nashville.

Although Twain landed a record deal with Mercury Records on the basis of her original material, her self-titled 1993 debut album featured only one of her songs, the feisty "God Ain't Gonna Getcha for That." Singles "What Made You Say That" and "Dance With the One That Brought You" each peaked at No. 55 on the Billboard country singles chart. It took a phone call from a distant admirer, rock producer Robert John "Mutt" Lange (AD/DC, Def Leppard, Foreigner, Bryan Adams and many more) for Twain to find a true believer, both in her voice and her original songs. Twain and Lange met face to face in Nashville at Fan Fair in 1993 and married six months later, by which time they'd written half an album's worth of tunes together. As 1994 unfolded, they traveled and wrote their way across the United States, Canada, England, Spain, Italy and the Caribbean. They began to lay down basic tracks for a new album in Nashville, later recording overdubs and mixing in Quebec.

The first results of their labor, "Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under," entered the Billboard country singles chart in January 1995, peaking at No. 11. Twain's second album, The Woman in Me, debuted on the country albums chart the following month. The collection has sold 18 million copies, making Twain the best-selling country female artist of all time. The single "Any Man of Mine," hit the charts in May and became the first of four consecutive No. 1 hits for Twain, including "(If You're Not in It for Love) I'm Outta Here!," "You Win My Love" and "No One Needs to Know." The project won a Grammy for country album of the year and was named album of the year by the Academy of Country Music in 1995.

Twain's third Mercury collection, Come on Over, was released in 1997, two years after her last album. The project continued Twain's hot streak, producing No. 1 hits "Honey, I'm Home" and "Love Gets Me Every Time." The sultry ballad "You're Still the One" went to No. 1 on the country singles chart and made it to No. 2 on Billboard's Hot 100 pop chart, solidifying Twain as a crossover artist. The sassy "Man! I Feel Like a Woman," a Top 5 country hit, helped secure the singer a contract with cosmetics company Revlon, which used the tune in TV ads featuring Twain. Come on Over has sold 11 million copies to date.

While The Woman in Me broke records and made Twain an international star, critics didn't know what to make of her sexy image and independent approach to marketing her music. Instead of touring to promote the record, Twain made a series of sexy videos, one of which was shot on location in Egypt. The singer finally mounted her first major tour in 1998 following the release of Come on Over. The highly anticipated outing helped earn Twain entertainer of the year trophies from the ACM and the Country Music Association in 1999. Twain has won a total of five Grammys, including two for best country song ("Come on Over" and "You're Still the One") and two for best country female vocal performance ("Man! I Feel Like a Woman!" and "You're Still the One"). She also has taken home trophies from the Canadian Country Music Awards, Canada's JUNO Awards and the American Music Awards. In 1999, Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) named Twain both country songwriter of the year and pop songwriter of the year. Her ballad, "You're Still the One," was named BMI's country and pop song of the year.

At the top of her game, Twain retreated to her home in Switzerland with her husband at the end of 1999. She and Lange welcomed their first child, a son named Eja, together in the summer of 2001 while preparing her 2002 release Up!, featuring the hit single "I'm Gonna Getcha Good."

Twain released her "Greatest Hit's" album in the fall of 2004. She was also featured on the "Desperate Housewives" soundtrack in 2005 and sang a duet with Canadian legend, Anne Murray, in 2007.

In 2008, Twain and Lange divorced. In April 2010, Shania joined forces with Oprah Winfrey's new television network, OWN, to star in a six-episode docu-series titled, Why Not? With Shania Twain. Why Not? is set to premiere in May 2011. Twain is also releasing her first memoir in the spring of 2011 with Atria Books, a division of Simon and Schuster. On January 1, 2011, it was announced that Twain and Swiss businessman, Frederic Thiébaud, were married in Puerto Rico. It is the second marriage for both.

Singer/Songwriter living in Toronto.

evan.bellam@gmail.com 

“It takes something special to make a room shaped something like a laundry chute, feel

like a theatre.  The Strumbellas are a band that seems to know what that special quality
is, because from their first song to their last, they transformed the small Railway Club
into a blazing amphitheatre” – VANCOUVERWEEKLY.COM

 Since the release of The Strumbellas’ eponymous 2009 EP, which was peppered
with accolades from Toronto weeklies and prompted a proclamation from the CBC
that they are a “band to watch,” the six-piece group has been slogging it out, earning
their stripes through residencies at The Cameron House and most recently a month of
Home.Sweet.Home Tuesdays at The Dakota Tavern.  The band also left the proverbial
nest in 2012, making new fans with two cross-country tours as well as playing a plethora
of festivals including CMW, NXNE, Pop Montreal, Eaglewood and Hillside in Guelph,
which by all accounts was the equivalent of their cotillion ball.

“The Rivoli was too small to contain the crowd trying to get in to see bluegrass-gospel-
punks The Strumbellas launch their debut disc, My Father And The Hunter” – NOW
MAGAZINE

 Conceived in Lindsay, Ont., but born in Toronto, The Strumbellas are equal parts
small town dream and big city gumption. Sensitive singer-songwriters beware: this ain’t
your meemaw’s country music. The band brings wheat field harmonies and arena-
ready thunder to backrooms and festival stages alike. Folk wisp and country twang are
nowhere to be found as The Strumbellas pound out a bluegrass-inspired indie rock that
rivals punk and hardcore for sweat, blood, and ruckus. 

“The Strumbellas conjure an alt-country Canadian landscape in which home is a

beacon, the graveyard looms large, and it all ends with a piano dirge to carry a body and
bury it slowly”  - THE STAR PHOENIX 

“The album is full of high energy, earnest folk music, coupled with darker-tinged gothic
folk” – EXCLAIM! MAGAZINE

The Strumbellas’ 2012 debut album, My Father And The Hunter, offers a beautiful,
harmonious dichotomy between melancholy heartbreak on songs Carry My Body,

Diane, Windsurfers, Underneath A Mountain, Left For Dead and The Bird That Follows
Me compared to blow-the-barn-doors-off spunk on The Sheriff, Lakes, Sailor’s Blues,
Rhinestone, I Just Had A Baby and Pistol.  The album, which was produced by Cone

McCaslin and recorded at Blue Rodeo’s coveted Woodshed Studio, is the harvest of
talented friends, some whisky and a few rounds of euchre.  Harmonies, stomps, hollers,
claps and gang vocals unabashedly abound as the songs weave compelling stories
throughout the entire album.  Dance, cry, put your fist through a wall or call someone
you love – expect to feel it all. Check out the mini-doc for The Bird That Follows Me in-
studio recording here.

The group recently headed south of the border to record with West Coast producer
Ryan Hadlock (The Lumineers, Metric, The Strokes, Gossip) at Bear Creek Studio near
Seattle.

“If 2012 was their year to introduce themselves to the larger Canadian audience, 2013

will surely be their breakout year.  Chances are, we’ll all be much more familiar with The
Strumbellas sooner rather than later” – BEATROUTE

 The Strumbellas: Simon Ward – vocals, acoustic guitar / David Ritter – piano, organ,
percussion, vocals / Jeremy Drury – drums, percussion / Isabel Ritchie – violin, viola,
vocals / Jon Hembrey – electric guitar, mandolin /Darryl James – bass.



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